Library clips

Raw Sugar is yet another general type of social bookmark manager…I don’t think it’s quite yet as developed as del.icio.us (well it hasn’t been around for long)

…so far the only unique feature I see is that the tag bundles are actually hyperlinked and contain all the items from the tags listed under them (kind of like a folder for your tags)…and a personalisation feature.

I think this is a great idea as in my del.icio.us collection I have many RSS tags that are specific, such as RSS_metrics, RSS_secure, etc…everytime I bookmark in one of these tags I could also bookmark in a more general RSS tag, yet this tag would be at the same level in my list even though it is an aggregate container from several other tags, so naturally this becomes the tag bundle heading (problem is the tag bundle heading itself doesn’t contain any items).

In addition to clicking on each tag in your tag bundle, you can also click the tag bundle heading itself to browse a longer list (this is more general browsing).
This notion kind of splits your account into channels, as I could send someone the URL’s from my account of just a couple of single tags, like, Blog_rsch, Blog_search, Blog_edu, or if they want my whole Blog channel (tag bundle) I could give them my tag called simply Blog…so now they have the choice to browse more generally as well as specifically.

So as mentioned it would be good if this tag bundle heading was a tag itself, containing all the contents from the tags below it (and you wouldn’t have to assign the tag bundle heading tag to a new page when you bookmark it as it would happen automatically when it’s assigned to a tag within the tag bundle list).

This means you kind of have a folder for some tags, which is a bit anti-folksonomy…it’s not a hierarchy, it’s just a category.
First we moved from folders to tags, now we have so many tags we are starting to need folders again (or a higher level tag so to speak).

The RawSugar blog mentions that you could use their service as an annotated linkblog (as people use del.icio.us), the only problem with this is that unlike a blog you can’t point people to an item (as there a no permalinks), you can only point them to a tag, then you have to find the item…see more.

They also say that you can use Raw Sugar as an alternative to your website, bookmark every page in your website in Raw Sugar, and use tags as the same category names from the website…you can also use the RawSugar search function to find pages…but as far as I can see there isn’t any full-text search, and you could just use categories in your blog (including sub-categories), for browsing anyway.

I would use something like Furl, Spurl, or Simpy, as they can:

- search full-text
- organise content into tags (but only at the one level)
- display a Title Index version of your blog

I really think Raw Sugar has some good ideas to spice up your individual space in a folksonomy, their approach is putting out there, the numerous ways you can use a versatile bookmark tool (these suggestions are touted as features, even though they are not neccessarily unique to Raw Sugar…they are taking the approach by users and bloggers by promoting the usage of a web 2.0 tool in different ways, hacks, etc…)

They have gone a step further than Connotea Tag Notes (allows a description for every tag) and implemented a personalised banner of your collection..eg. FitnessSage…so they are really taking the personalised approach making your account feel like a portal (people always love to have an individual touch).

What’s next a sidebar for more personalisation…add permalinks to this and you have a truly personalised link blog that is also part of a bigger system (folksonomy)…watch out blogs!